Yearly Archives: 2011

New Year Day Sweatacular!

New Years Day 2012

I have a dream. Every New Years Day there is a very popular polar bear swim at 2:30pm down in English Bay and I imagine getting all superheated in the sauna and stepping out steaming and casually walking into the ocean, no problem. What a hit the saunatruck would be at event like this!
The problem is we’re never awake or in any shape to drive a big truck at 2:30pm on January 1. Typically on a New Years day we’ve just gone to bed around noon, and the sauna is still hot and probably in use by a few leftover revelers. We actually did have it parked by the ocean one year, 2002 I believe, and I was standing in the ocean on New Years Day (at like 230am, not pm), but we never make it out to that polar bear swim.
This year is no exception. And like all new year’s days, we will be celebrating with a sweat. It’s also a sunday, which we also traditionally celebrate with a sweat. It’s also the Saunasessions 11th anniversary, which we will celebrate with a sweat. That’s three celebrations and three sweats, all in one evening.
We’ll be at our current location, the Hammock Residency, 1923 Gravely st, alley entrance. The box will be hot from 6pm-12. I have heard that Orkestar Slivovica is also having a super jam party next door, so since we’re all down for a good time this should be a new years day to (try to) remember. And if you can’t make the swim at least get in a good polar bear shower.
I hope you can wake up, come down and join us.

Posted on December 31st, 2011. Posted in Saunasessions | Comments Off

Mobile Sauna: Artist in Residence at The Hammock, Vancouver, BC. Sept 2011 – May 2012

We have been enjoying being the Artist in Residence at The Hammock. Karlis built a new mobile shower for outdoor bathers and we have been making some safety and style improvements that have been long overdue. Solar charger for the secondary battery array, new grip tape for the wooden stairs, and new modular lighting rig.

The Coordinator of the Hammock Residency, Heidi Nagtegaal, asked to write a little something about this ongoing pleasure project, and the following is what we submitted for her website.

We built a SaunaTruck. Several, in fact. We roll them around and sweat by the ocean, in parks, in backyards, and up in the mountains by rivers and lakes. Our current mobile sauna is made inside of an Antique 1970’s Hino KL Cargo Truck and you can see it under construction. It has a change room in the entrance and a sauna that seats 6-14 people (14 is very friendly). It gets really hot and the red cedar feels amazing inside. Cedar is quite the healing material. The SaunaTruck is sometimes available for rentals. Keep in mind that it’s a very old and temperamental truck; but we do love parties and festivals and weddings and full moon gatherings and all sorts of stuff like that. We’ve been having weekly sunday saunasessions since 2001. You may have been already. Some sessions are huge and awesome, some are small and awesome. They are in various locations with various intentions. Some are dance parties, some are potlucks, or live jams, or tea parties, or booze-ups. We’ve also seen maybe more mobile saunas than you can imagine, and we’ve got the biggest photo gallery of mobile saunas anywhere. Got some ideas or want more information? — Adrian (Prof. Prawns) Sinclair & Karlis (Count Snacky) Kalnins

Adrian (Prof. Prawns) Sinclair — Besides co-curating Mobile Sauna Truck Happenings, Adrian has been staging Guerilla Freestyle-Rap interventions via Sound Bike with the Freestyle Focus Group FFG, growing and fermenting various foods, Serving Tea with the RYTWM Project, and doing activist and communications work for arts and non-profit groups like [PIVOT Legal, GREENPEACE, 45WEST STUDIOS and Wilderness Committee]. He is an amateur entho-botanist-forager, an academically trained philosopher and a childrens zine writer. He lives in eastvan with his jade plant Maurice M P.

Karlis (Count Snacky) Kalnins — Karlis Kalnins is based in Vancouver where he bio-intensively gardens, builds mobile bike-based sound systems, freestyle raps, develops his skills in mycology, and is co-director of the newly founded BC Tea Growers Association. His past works in the arts contributed to the early formations of locative media art in Canada. In 2001 Karlis founded the Locative Media Lab with Marc Tuters to explore the field of user generated cartography. These efforts resulting in GPSter (2001), Geograffiti (2002) and now Where-FI (2003). His work has been presented internationally at conferences and new media festivals including: IMPAKT (Utrecht), Media Architecture (Riga), Collaborative Cartography (London), VSMM (Berkeley + Montreal), Next 5 Minutes, E-Culture Fair (Amsterdam) and others.

http://saunasessions.ca/v2/saunas

Posted on December 23rd, 2011. Comments Off

H3t Sauna Trailer

H3T.cz

Praha, Czech Republic

The crew at H3T may be the most prolific and original mobile sauna development team in the world. They have 4 lightweight mobile saunas so far, including a flying (suspension) sauna, a floating sauna, a bike sauna and this small trailer sauna. They’ve since built another sauna trailer with a cylindrical design similar to their bike sauna trailer, and they’ve also made plans for another floating sauna. We look forward to more of their upcoming work.

We brought a sauna to MFDF 2010 in Jihlava.

We got an old barely functional trailer that we decided to transform into a
chassis of a new mobile sauna. As usual we worked with simple materials.
You get in from the back. A stove is placed above the thill. There are two
benches where you can sit sideways to the direction of travel.

We wouldn’t recommend using sauna while traveling though.

And finally a good news: this sauna just moves away when moronic gangbangers
turn up.

Posted on May 2nd, 2011. Posted in Mobile Saunas | Comments Off

H3T Bike Sauna Kolonok

H3T.cz
Praha, Czech Republic

In Prague cycling is a hobby of dedicated cyclists who have to prove
constantly that they are spirited enough to adopt this non-standard way of
transportation around the city.

For all those who are not worried to ride their bikes, we have created a
sauna that can be attached to a bike and dragged to a river or lake.

bike sauna on parade

Structural design and materials are functional in maximum possible way. With
respect to the necessary comfort, dimensions are minimal. The materials used
are light and durable. The front tilt is in a way reference to the legendary
Velorex three-wheeler. The sauna has capacity of up to six people.

It wouldn’t have been possible to create our sauna without reliance,
generosity and effort of a number of people. Thank you all very much! This
sauna is available for everyone. If you feel like trying it out visit
http://www.bajkazyl.cz/

bike sauna

Posted on May 2nd, 2011. Posted in Mobile Saunas | Comments Off

Back to the Banks 2011

Ok the two nights at the Two Kings 10 year sauna sweatacular were dope, but we’ve got one more: we’re going back to Spanish Banks tonight for another beach mission. Maybe you were there for the epic acid Laser Zepplin after party circa 2005? Maybe you biked in for our Spanish banks ice trilogy in December 2009? Or maybe you just heard how amazing it is to stand sipping cider steaming naked in the moonlight on the beach in winter with an epic view of Vancouver and the north shore mountains. You can’t rent beachfront moments like this in this city, you just have to own it. Like tonight. Second-to-last parking lot at Spanish Banks, 8 till late.

Posted on January 4th, 2011. Posted in Saunasessions | Tagged saunasessions | Comments Off

10 years of saunasessions

So 10 years ago we had this idea to build a sauna in a truck and drive it up to the Intention festival for new years eve. That sunday we had a few peeps over for a sweat. We did it again the next week. And every week since. 10 sweaty years. This saturday, Jan 1, and this sunday Jan 2 we’ll be trying to figure out what happened and celebrating all those buckets of persperation. Bring some tunes, some tea, any old sauna party photos, and of course, bring a towel. 2Kings estate, 4093 Dumphries, basically on Kingsway just east of Knight st, across from the Rona, 8 till late.

Posted on January 1st, 2011. Posted in Saunasessions | Tagged saunasessions | Comments Off